Ace investor Shankar Sharma’s slum story shows why India’s manufacturing dreams still depend on China

Veteran investor Shankar Sharma’s post about a gym equipment workshop in a Mumbai slum has sparked a broader conversation about India’s ongoing dependence on Chinese manufacturing. Despite hopes of becoming a global factory alternative, India’s production ambitions are being stalled by imported parts and strangled by restrictive land-use regulations. As the world looks to diversify beyond China, experts say India needs more than tariffs and subsidies — it needs structural reform to truly compete at scale.